Recorded live in Accord, New York, this recording stands not only as Notice Recording’s 70th album, but also the first release to document an event organized by Notice as well. June 6th was one of the hottest days of that summer, and the wooden platform on which the performances occurred was on the top of a small hill on Deer Creek Farm. Many sweaty trips up and down that hill carrying gear ensued. Luckily, the performance and audience space was nestled under a shadowy tree canopy of thick leaves, allowing intermittent patches of sunlight. Charmaine Lee performed solo and was soon joined by Weston Olencki. Following this, featured on Side B, was a first meeting of Fred Lonberg-Holm, Joanna Mattrey, and Gabby Fluke-Mogul, with dance accompaniment by Emily Kessler, Sienna Blaw, and Chelsea Enjer Hecht, whose footsteps can be lightly heard in the leaves throughout the recording, a textural element joined by various distant birdsong and other indeterminate shuffling. The final performance of the afternoon was Fred and Weston, another first meeting, a duo of trombone and cello, also joined by the dancers. This album exists as basically a high quality field recording of the event: atmospheric and intense, ephemeral and grounded, an experience amorphous in one’s memory as are the undulating birdsongs that interlaced the entire afternoon.

Tim Olive returns for his third album on Notice, a rare solo outing from this avid collaborator. “Ribbon” is a document of his highly developed relationship with amplified object manipulation, in a manner most cathartic and engaged, and yet informed by compositional sensibility. This release is constructed from multiple tracks of a variety of sound sources recorded in his studio in Kobe, Japan; these tracks have then been edited and layered, in shifting densities and evolving textures. Despite the abrasiveness of these recordings, there is a certain kind of sensuality in their interactions. One may sense that these pieces can be touched, as if the air has become solidified, like slowly forming glass, flecked with mineral impurities, a movement shuddering in locked-place, shedding, bristling with multi-textured shards and strands of sonic material. --- Tim Olive / metal strips, rubber tubing, tuning forks, clockwork motors, metal teeth, bow, electromagnet, cassette playback head, magnetic pickups, octave divider, preamps ---Recorded Jan-Feb 2021 Kobe, Japan. Mastered by Anne-F Jacques. Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery

"As pointed out in a February profile, Lucy Liyou’s music has an uncanny valley effect, primarily because she likes to use computerized voices in her sound art compositions. But disorientation and confusion emerges from her work in other ways as well, as she mixes pretty elements with woozy tones and shifting backgrounds. She’s found an excellent partner for this in Philadelphia-based guitarist and lyricist Yska, and on their first collaboration A Need / A Want, the pair make music that always feels slightly out of sync. On “A Need,” Liyou’s text-to-voice speech drifts around Yska’s notes like debris tossed into ocean waves; during “A Want,” piano melts into found-sound voices, then confrontational noise. All of this is realized with both seriousness and playfulness, another way that Liyou and Yska marry opposites to keep everything off balance." - Marc Masters   Lucy Liyou’s music carries with it deeply personal poetry, in a literal and metaphorical sense, conveyed using sound collage, noise, field recordings, and abstracted pop tendencies. When Notice first heard Lucy’s music, we were struck by its incredible honesty, vulnerability, and originality. For her first collaboration, A Need/A Want, she is joined by Philadelphia-based guitarist and lyricist Yska. Bizarre shards of Yska's electric guitar permeate Lucy’s deft and supple production techniques as the sounds contained throughout the two pieces produce moments of confusion, bliss, and catharsis. Using text-to-voice and largely unprocessed singing, the duo's lyrics present a refreshing and striking potency: “I’ve only been there once; and only for a little while; she walked like lavender; swaying, leaning…”. Music this honest and also so carefully crafted is a true treasure, and A Need/A Want is a testament to musicians honing their visions in a very unique way. --- Written by Lucy Liyou and Yska. Piano and production by Lucy Liyou. Guitar by Yska. Mastered by Branic Howard. Artwork by Sludge Thunder“A Want” contains a sample from “untitled” by Owen Sanger. Used with permission.

Erosion is a sprawling yet focused love affair with the bass drum, allowing myriad objects to playfully interact with its grand form. Kevin and Jacob engage with the instrument in an entirely unrelenting way, traversing textural, pointillist sections, as well as rippling metallic drones. Notice’s admiration of Kevin and Jacob’s work goes back to circa 2008, with Kevin’s album with Tetuzi Akiyama and Christian Kiefer ‎on the much-loved Digitalis Industries, and Jacob’s album with Tony Dryer and Jack Wright on Bug Incision Records. Since then, 2019’s Invasive Species became a stand-by, on which Kevin played and Jacob mastered. Erosion finds the two merging their techniques in a very palpable, sensuous way. As if rendering an amorphous sculpture in minuscule gestures: gathering, releasing, reapplying material in a structured improvisation; new patterns emerge yet resist completion, as if working with weighted feathers which are impossible to manage. The length of Erosion, each piece clocking at 40 minutes, allows for this sense of fascinating endlessness; a constant process of extraction and application of reemerging sonic forms. --- JFH / bass drumKC / bass drum ---Recorded in Berkeley, California on February 12, 2020 (A) and December 18, 2019 (B). Recorded, mixed, and mastered by JFH. Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery

"Composer and singer Judith Berkson’s Liederkreis II takes lieder by Schubert and Schumann as starting points, Berkson typically stripping away the piano accompaniments and performing them a capella, multitracked. The results are both seductive and chilling; Berkson’s vocal writing so effective that you’d love to hear them sung live. Especially potent is “Suns”, recasting a bittersweet number from Die Winterreise. “Castle”, based on a song from Schumann’s Liederkreis has stark power. Interspersed are three unsettling pieces for synthesiser. Berkson’s singing is exquisite throughout; this is an intriguing, unsettling album." – The Arts Desk Judith Berkson, a composer, singer, and pianist based in NYC, has been honing her Liederkreis project since 2016, which features electronically-augmented vocal interpretations of lieder by such composers as Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann, as well as purely electronic pieces engaging noise and feedback-oriented vignettes. This new release finds Judith continuing a more song-oriented approach, as previously explored on her 2010 ECM release Oylam. The pieces contained on Liederkreis II are deeply haunting, timbrally sensuous, and a notably divergent aesthetic for Notice Recordings. Judith is taking her electronically-processed vocals and conforming them to the slowly dripping, contorted melodies of Schubert and Schumann’s lieder, firmly within the lineage of such artists as Klaus Nomi and Kraftwerk. Liederkreis II exists as a commentary of a hypermodern relationship with classical music: both an admiration and a recontextualisation. This is music that is at once both personal and emotional, and formal and mechanical. It is both beautiful and anxious. It is within this contrast that the album retains such an alluring presence, and we are honored to facilitate its existence. -- Liederkreis - voice, electronics, synthesizer Recorded and mastered at Menegroth the Thousand Caves by Colin Marston. Woodhaven, Queens, New York Castle is an interpretation of Liederkreis op. 39 No. 7 Auf einer Burg by Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Doppelgänger, Harpers, Suns, Der Kreuzzug are interpretations of lieder by Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Thank you to Franz, Franke, Sigmund, Saul, Robert and Clara and Joseph Gabriel Esther Maneri Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery"Relaxing in the Desert Under an Overcast Sky in the Sunset", 2020evanlindorffellery.com Letterpress printed by Small Fires Press, New Orleanssmallfirespress.com

On their first release since 2017, the duo of Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg craft a world inhabited by both the familiar and foreign. Guthrie's intimate vocals float like smoke over mysterious piano phrases; elements vacillating in and out of a sense of awareness. Bass and French horn, the duo's main instruments, are inquisitive and gentle, often present as a whisper, a quiet wind, an exhale. Sounds exist as distant vertical pillars, soon shifting into three-dimensional shapes, spinning autonomously. In this album there are meticulously placed auxiliary sounds, including textural field recordings and object play. They complicate and enrich the rigorously sparse instrumental notes, resulting in pieces that, in a vividly engaging way, are less domestic than they are the music of dream-like errands, or an inverted walk through a residential neighborhood. ---Artists' statement:"What became Solum is built from a handful of improvisations collaged with recordings made separately. Necessity somewhat determined creativity, and the work responds to and articulates the rather heightened domesticity of 2020. We still have to wait until 830-9p for the exhaust fan from the restaurant below us to shut off for the night if we want to do any acoustic recording, or accept (amplify) the way it vibrates our apartment. Our studio is really just our lives as they can be lived. As in most things, we have to trust that the other's direction is a good heading. Materially, the instrumentation is somewhat more broad than the above would imply. I think our mix of electronics, recordings, horn & bass are still there but not as consistent a thread throughout, more dispersed in their roles. The range of electronics is certainly more varied and much less glossy than I think either of us have really applied before. We both brought homemade or found materials more than we have previously."- Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg 2021 --- Anne Guthrie / Voice, French Horn, Electronics, Objects, RecordingsBilly Gomberg / Bass Guitar, Electronics, Objects, Recordings ---Recorded in San Francisco CA, 2020. (Includes recordings made in Austin TX, Feb 2020) Mastered by Branic Howard. Artwork and video by E. Lindorff-Ellery

“Butterfly Knife” finds two vital musicians in the contemporary music landscape releasing their first duo album together, despite collaborating in a live context numerous times. Charmaine Lee, based in New York by way of Sydney, is known for her unique and playfully intense work in what she very aptly describes as “vocal expression”, forging erosions within deft personal performance. Decoupling breath, mouth, voice, body, and recording apparatus, she supplements a wide variety of techniques with daringly controlled mic feedback. Zach Rowden, a New Havener, utilizes controlled and unaltered contrabass scrapes, stabs, and squalls to pry into the recording space, conversing and engaging with Lee's honed aural language. Both musicians are capable of crossing over into taught bursts of noise, but on Butterfly Knife, they relish in surfing an intense pre-spillover zone, the two performers communicating in combinations of droning static in addition to weirdly generous bouts of silence. --- Recorded and mixed by Ian McColm, New Haven CT, 2019. Mastered by Branic Howard.

Chicago trio Haptic (Steven Hess, Joseph Clayton Mills, and Adam Sonderberg) return for their second Notice release, a densely evocative quartet of pieces that continue to reflect a deeply specific sense of place and purpose, recorded using a “steadicam” approach: probing, passive, multidimensional; a voyeuristic yet highly intentional form of documentation. Although Haptic was initially formed (in 2005) for the purpose of live performance, the rigor of their process continues to be well-suited to recording; these tracks suggest film sound design in their precise, evocative choices and creative blending of sounds, and in the way they unspool as if moving through physical or visual environments. "BTWN 65, 52" whips a pounding backbone into a blinding gale with richly odd electro-percussive tics, while "Lost My Shape" churns with the mysteriously foreboding chorus of activity of a multi-use former factory: the mechanized effort of conjuring precise forms.---Artists' statement:"On the first Monday in July of 2019, we met up and set out to make what would become Weird Undying Annihilation. It's a record of full stops and one incomplete sentence. It's best appreciated through headphones. The last sentence of the above paragraph could be said of scads of records. The advice is given here not because the material is difficult to hear but rather because the recording process encourages careful, focused attention to where the sounds are placed in the stereo field. We’ve been interested in working out an aural version of a steadicam tracking shot for years—creating a sense of movement through a physical space, zooming in on details, then pulling back and shifting focus in a continuous, fluid way—but the circumstances have never been quite right to explore the idea fully in a recording. Achieving strong and seemingly organic figure/ground relationships between various recorded materials is relatively easy to do with a DAW, some good monitors, and a great deal of patience, but seamlessly documenting that dynamic in a live setting is more challenging. In August 2016, at Constellation in Chicago, we gave a performance that used the full extent of the venue’s expansive stage to explore some of these issues, using instruments and other objects as much for their plastic, sculptural qualities as their sonic ones. The concert incorporated shifting distances, changes in scale, and wide dynamic ranges, and it invited varying degrees of focus as different areas of the performance space vied for the attention of the audience. Without careful preparation, it would have been difficult to capture the effect with an audio recording, but a handful of photographs and a few seconds of video remain to remind us of the experience.The recording conditions when we convened in July 2019 were not dissimilar to the setup at Constellation: an almost-empty apartment, with a few different "workstations" arrayed on the floor and scattered on tables, populated with small speakers, percussion, playback devices, electronics, and cassette tapes, among other items. We could move freely around the space, activating various devices and performing on instruments. The entire session could be recorded steadicam style, which involved moving around the room in a slow, noiseless, and deliberate fashion; the figure/ground relationships between the various sources could be composed through movement, and in real time.Nine months later,  in April 2020, the material was edited, layered, and mixed in the same space in which it was recorded. Doing that work in the same room, nearly a year after recording it, one could see how the space itself had evolved - the light, the arrangement of furniture, the deadening of the acoustics brought on by more stuff everywhere – and the final product emerged as a kind of superimposition of those two days within a single space. Our hope is that a sense of that space—and of the relationships developing in that space—is apparent throughout the finished recording."

A Jack Spicer quote - “Get those words out of your mouth and into your heart” - may be useful when consuming this provocatively bare duo performance, which compels the listener to abandon any presumptions about improvised music. Switching between squeamish spurts of controlled trumpet exhalations and an intentionally hackneyed melodic line that grows more compelling with every repetition, Wick’s playing is obstinate, confusing, and deeply welcoming. rousay surrounds the trumpet’s pure and metallic tones with deft sonic movement and anti-ideas, oddly-placed drum rolls and rhythmically elusive brushed patterns. Recorded at Marigny Studios in New Orleans by Rick Nelson, this is music that is egoless, non-narrative, and without identity, and yet it is in fact emphatic and deeply felt. The duo insists on framing improvisation on their own terms, not so much ignoring chops and improv tropes, but playing as if they simply don’t exist, a brash surfacing of new paths forward. --- Jacob Wick - trumpetclaire rousay - percussion ---Recorded June 14, 2019 by Rick Nelson at Marigny Studios, New Orleans, LAMastered by Andrew Weathers

Extremities documents the first meeting of Jessica Ackerley and Patrick Shiroishi, recorded live in a basement apartment in Chinatown, Los Angeles. Both musicians come from strong improvised and free music scenes: Ackerley from NYC, and Shiroishi from L.A. There is a joyful sense of abandon here; the love affair each musician has with their instrument produces a dripping intensity, congealing upon impact with the physical, coalescing into a new form; fresh contours, rippled textures glinting in the atmosphere of passive space, as their musical chemistry manifests in instantaneous spurts. Stylistically, the album ranges from free jazz to noise and even serrated slices of metal. This makes for music constantly branching out from an agitated core: bulbous and irregular, and convolutedly engaging from start to finish. --- Jessica Ackerley / guitarPatrick Shiroishi / saxophones, percussion --- Recorded by Jared RodriguezMixed and mastered by Lucas BrodeArtwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery"Garlic Foot" and "Knowing What to Write" (detail), 2020

Recorded live, this album presents Lonberg-Holm in an intimate relationship with his cello, beautifully recorded by Joaquim Montes at Studio Namouche in Lisbon. Using a variety of extended techniques, he conjures a barrage of multiphonics, interwoven timbral excursions, and minuscule textural knots lined along the peripheral architecture of these pieces. Lonberg-Holm alludes to his music having a non-denominational devotional presence in his life, and this relationship is evident in these deeply personal improvisations. This is visceral playing: heavy, dry, honest, and unpretentious. Lonberg-Holm has performed in an exceptional number of free jazz and free improvised ensembles, not to mention with a variety of indie rock bands; one can hear this experience permeating the seasoned playing in these recordings.----Artist's statement:"Over the years, I have made a number of solo recordings, some in studios such as the now demolished Airwaves in Chicago and the first ESS location (now gone as well), some in concert halls (e.g., Mills College), some outdoors (my father’s farm in central NY as well as the Florida Everglades), and a few at various homes I have lived in. Location has an obvious impact and my long and affectionate relationship with Lisbon inspired me to want to make a solo document there. I have recorded with a variety of projects at Studio Namouche in the Benfica neighborhood of Lisbon and love it. That was where I wanted to make this solo recording.Anyone who has been to Namouche knows it is a magical place. A faded version of its once probably grand self, Namouche is a sort of small RCA studio A that somehow survived the tumults of the recording industry; it still has the right proportions and materials on the walls, floor and ceiling. Add in good mics, a mixing desk, and the very capable ears of head engineer Joaquim Montes and it’s about perfect.I’ve described the cello as a “four string busy box” for many years but only recently did I realize it also acts as a “safe space” for me. Although the outcome of pressing the various levers is more unpredictible on a cello than a busy box, I still feel that if I follow the material where it wants to go, nothing can go wrong. It is an act of faith.For many years, “religious” music has been a source of entertainment and inspiration for me. In spite (or because?) of my lack of religious identity I find beauty in many types of music for worship. Over the years, at different times, I have been obsessed with Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Buddhist musics, sermons and chants. While I sometimes fantasize about making a record of religious music, the only faith I can claim to have any real relationship with is Christianity and a recording of Christian music might be misunderstood so . . . I refrain. Instead, I like to think that my solo cello improvisations are a kind of non-denominational devotional music.During the period when this was recorded, I was listening a lot to Alfred Reed. He seems to favor a very low A (almost A flat) and I experimented with tuning my cello down as a result. Some of the tracks are at that lower pitch and others are closer to A440.Namouche has a very fine grand piano and a number of other excellent keyboards. They also have some derelict pianos. Most noticeable are the two in the front vestibule and the one in the live room. The short piano pieces were recorded using only the piano in the live room. Because such wrecks aren't found in most good studios, I couldn’t resist playing it. The juxtaposition of a derelict instrument and an incompetent pianist in a great room with excellent equipment was simply too good to pass up." --- Fred Lonberg-Holm / cello, unprepared piano --- Recorded March 21, 2019 by Joaquim Montes at Namouche Studios, LisbonMastered by Branic Howard, Portland OR

"Pure noise is easy enough to tune out once you get acclimated to it. On Success, a thrilling recording of a live performance from 2019, free-improvising saxophonist Steve Baczkowski and guitarist Bill Nace keep you on the knife’s edge of your attention. Never merely bludgeoning, each responds sensitively to the other’s extremity, as well as to the audience and the room itself. Moreso than your average lo-fi live recording, Success is heavy on extraneous sounds, which actually enhance the music. Background clatter—clinking beer glasses?—drifts into the mix like a percussionist with a particularly light touch. Even the occasional snippet of crowd conversation adds to the almost unbearable intensity. In quiet moments, I judge them for talking over the music, but also feel for them the way I feel for unsuspecting victims in a horror film, chattering away, oblivious to whatever’s coming next." - Andy Cush, Pitchfork Recorded live at a small bookstore in Dallas called The Wild Detectives, Success presents two symbiotic improvisers generating dense layers of sonic texture. Extensions of electric guitar and saxophone are precipitated into the listener’s consciousness like rampant cloud seeding; billowing forth surges of peripheral energy, an overflow continuously trimmed from the edges and falling to the floor. Often one’s sense of instrument distinction becomes blurred. Despite sounds being created separately by both forced air and amplified electromagnetic feedback, timbres converge with the room itself to create an enormous presence and a unifying, exhausting, gratifying listen, neatly augmented by the palpable presence of room tone. --- Steve Baczkowski / tenor, baritone saxophonesBill Nace / electric guitar ---Recorded live at The Wild Detectives, Dallas TX, August 16, 2019 by Stephen LucasMastered by Mark Alan Miller

This set of improvised pieces is made up of Montréalers Raphaël Foisy-Couture (bass), Vicky Mettler (guitar), and Vancouverite Lisa Cay Miller (piano). There's a relaxed atmosphere among the trio, despite seemingly disparate elements that swing and play with a tight cohesion; networked fistulas convey and receive. Along with their industriousness, this keeps their music light and exploratory, appealingly collectively-minded throughout. Miller only occasionally breaks out into fitful knots of block chords, her and Foisy's slyly executed extended techniques keep flowing a steady variety of sounds, and Mettler's crafty instrumental resourcefulness (as in the prismatic folk of her project Kee Avil) results in a deeply pleasing group improvisation that often feels wonderfully domestic. --- Lisa Cay Miller / pianoVicky Mettler / guitarRaphaël Foisy-Couture / upright bass --- Recording and mixing by Zachary Scholes, Montréal QC Mastered by Branic Howard, Portland ORopenfieldrecording.com Artwork by Raphaël Foisy-Couture

This studio recording of Jason Kahn (voice) and Ilia Belorukov (modular synthesizer) is tense and taut, as dry, crumbling sonic swathes manifest both as machine and human, facilitating an almost ceremonial liberation. Kahn has historically been known for electronic sounds exhibiting stasis and abrasive, enduring minimalism; as of late his work has been primarily concerned with his own unaltered voice. Belorukov’s work exists within the realm of improvised noise and electroacoustics, as he prioritizes a wide range of collaborations. Kahn's voice provides a stark contrast to Belorukov's jagged synthesis, like examining oneself close-up in a mirror. Here, these prolific musicians share a unique, intimate intensity through drastically different approaches. --- Jason Kahn - voiceIlia Belorukov - modular synthesizer ---Recorded by Ilia Belorukov at Sdvig in Saint-Petersburg on 30 Sept 2018 (A1, A2), and by Jason Kahn at WIM in Zürich on 28 Feb 2019 (B1, B2, B3)Mixed by Jason Kahn (A1, A2) and Ilia Belorukov (B1, B2, B3)Mastered by Ilia Belorukov, Saint-PetersburgThanks to Pro Helvetia and Kurt LiedwartArtwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery

Olive and Naka's collaboration pairs two musicians working with lo-/mid-fi sonics and modified/self-made instruments. Through extensive recording and touring, the duo has honed a patient aesthetic, allowing each other's sounds to unfold with minimal, sure-footed interactions, akin to moving along a path up the mountain for which this release is titled. Naka's sources here consist mainly of "long loops of sagging/distressed cassette tape winding into and out of similarly distressed portable tape players, with real-time analog processing." Olive uses magnetic pickups and analog electronics. This leads to sounds of uncertain provenance, playfully emerging from a thick analog haze, building toward surprising, subtle crescendos. This is work that results from, and produces, an active semblance of stillness. ---   Takuji Naka / tapes, electronicsTim Olive / magnetic pickups, electronics   ---   Recorded in Kyoto, Japan, 2019Mastered by Branic Howard, Portland ORArtwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery

Available as 320k MP3 or 16bit FLAC    Statement from Mike Weiss: "I count all the time on resonance. I call on this, you see." – painter, Josef AlbersIn Low Light (Music for the Winter Solstice) was created during the Yule season of 2018, from the Winter Solstice (December 21st) to New Year’s Day (January 1st). The instruments used were all percussion objects. I recorded it in my basement studio and at Zen Buddhist Temple Chicago using one digital PZM microphone-recorder, PA sound system, contact mic, looping pedal and various percussion (mbira, tongue drum, dholak, changgo, bass drum, cymbals, gongs, singing bowls, bells, dharma bell, moktak). The process was recorded live without any overdubs, manipulation or editing.Soon after the first round of recording was finished I traveled to Indiana to be with family for the holidays. Whenever I visit my in-laws, whose house is nestled in a hardwood forest, I like to begin my mornings with a walk into the woods at dawn. I look for a dry spot near the base of an old Sugar Maple that lives at the bend of a creek (now frozen) and I sit. This time I brought my portable recorder with the hopes of gathering some field recordings for this project. I sat in complete stillness, just listening. Ten minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes but all that I heard was a few singular sounds widely spaced apart – woodpeckers drumming out call-and-response rhythms on hollowed out Ash trees from across the ravine, one Blue Jay siren, the tussle from a scurrying chipmunk through a mess of brittle Oak leaves, a few quick chirps from a Cardinal couple, a jet passing overhead super high beyond the clouds, a barely audible screech from car brakes in the distance, the low drone of a freight train engine and the bells of a railroad crossing. Other than that, I realized that I was mostly only hearing space and air. The playback on my recorder was nearly blank that I wondered if I even hit the “record” button. This is such a contrast to what this place will sound like in April when the wilderness wakes up. During that time of year, it’s a cacophony of life re-emerging into action and an explosion of color popping out of the ground and from the buds of these now barren grey twigs. But now nature seems to be observing a silent retreat before all of this drama begins again. At this moment the woods are spare, simple, spacious and resonant and this resonance scoops me up and holds me for a moment.The sounds that I formed into these short pieces seem to reflect this experience of this season as the Earth completes its lap around the sun and begins again. Is this simply interpretation after the act or is the creative process unconsciously influenced and conditioned by the extent to which we open ourselves up to our environment? I suspect that this depends on how much we lay ourselves bare to our experiences and get ourselves out of the way of the act of creation to allow for it all to flow naturally. It reminds me of a story I read by the American Zen Priest, John Daido Loori about his experience on a photography retreat with the modern master photographer, Minor White. These were Minor’s instructions to Loori – “Venture into the landscape without expectations. Let your subject find you. When you approach it, you will feel resonance, a sense of recognition. If, when you move away, the resonance fades, or if it gets stronger as you approach, you’ll know you have found your subject. Sit with your subject and wait for your presence to be acknowledged. Don’t try to make a photograph but let your intuition indicate the right moment to release the shutter. If, after you’ve made an exposure, you feel a sense of completion, bow and let go of the subject and your connection to it. Otherwise, continue photographing until you feel the process is complete.”-MW, 2019 We first became aware of Mike Weis through his drumming in Chicago's Zelienople, in which he blended hypnotic, delicate grooves and shimmering auxiliary percussion into the band's unique downcast drone-folk. In recent years, Weis has expanded his exploration into meditation and ritual in music performance, exemplified by this set recorded for the 2018 Winter Solstice. Weis' mix of such unconventional percussion instruments as tongue drum, dholak, and changgo, as well as gongs, bells, and objects, all performed live, is typical in its unerring time, tightly controlled dynamics, and dense yet drifting atmosphere. The music settles in places which aren’t visible upon first sight, and, like walking through a foggy, mid-December field, pock-marked with patches of snow and tufts of brown grass, sounds reveal themselves for a moment of recognition and familiarity, only to recede, vignetted by the enveloping atmosphere. Mike Weis has been deeply admired by Notice since our inception, and In Low Light provides an engaging illustration of his practice. --- Mike Weis / mbira, tongue drum, dholak, changgo, bass drum, cymbals, gongs, singing bowls, bells, dharma bell, moktak, field recordings --- Tracklisting: 1. Number 1 - 07:062. Number 2 - 05:343. Number 3 - 03:014. Number 4 - 05:145. Number 5 - 02:486. Number 6 - 05:357. Number 7 - 03:538. Number 8 - 05:16 --- Recorded early Winter 2018 Pre-mastering by Matt Christensen Mastered by Branic Howard, Portland OR

Home built devices and electronic experimentation may not make for the easiest of listening experiences, but Ryoko Ayama and Anne-F Jacques combine these two elements in an especially compelling way.  I was most fascinated by the distinctly different character between the two performances despite them being only around 24 hours removed from one another.  The first half captures the structured approach and the musicality of their distinctly un-musical instrumentation, while the second comes across less about composition and more about the full exploration of sound.  The two performances complement each other perfectly and paired together makes for a fascinating, if occasionally challenging, tape. - Brainwashed This collaboration between Notice alumna Ryoko Akama (NTR036) and Québécois sound artist Anne-F Jacques manages to be both minimal and teeming with activity. Recorded during their winter 2018 U.S. tour, (here presenting stops in NYC at Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia, and Boston’s Vernon Street Studios), these recordings feature occasional action-gestures over a whisper-bed of electronics, activated objects, along with Jacques' "contraptions and erratic devices" (a stated interest), which interject a variety of odd rhythms and sounds. When performing live, Akama and Jacques move fluidly across the room, stopping at various “object stations”, engaged with playful intensity. Patiently exploratory and hinting at a domesticity, these are wonderfully restrained performances; they project a pleasantness that results from the performers' masterful focus and choices. --- Recorded live:Side A: January 29th, 2018, Experimental Intermedia, NYCSide B: January 30th, 2018, Vernon Street Studio, BostonMastered by Branic Howard, Portland ORArtwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery Thanks to Phill Niblock, Katherine Liberowskaya, Cecilia Lopez, and Morgan Evans-Weiler

Notice Recordings’ Chicago origins were heavily galvanized by regularly seeing sets by cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and multi-instrumental improviser Zoots Houston. Both have since separately relocated to Kingston, NY, where they continue to engage with the kinds of musical exchanges exemplified here. This set, recorded live at Chicago’s Elastic Arts, finds them performing with percussionist Ben Bennett. Bennett, a musician and performance artist, is a notable figure in the current and vibrant free improv and jazz scene in NYC; recent collaborations include Michael Foster and Jack Wright, among others. All three players metaphorically deconstruct their instruments while scattering pockets of agitated hot air on the performance floor, augmented with pedals, radioesque static sweeps, tightly propelled breaths, and extended techniques. This is dry, heavily structural, bristling stuff, with periodic digressions into melody and a strong control of focused and at times uncomfortably magnified timbres. Much of the material is urgent and electronic, filling the space and remaining firmly gestural. These two sidelong sets display slices of time coming from strong voices within this niche of contemporary improvisation. ---Ben Bennett / percussionZoots Houston / synthesizer, objectsFred Lonberg-Holm / cello   ---Recorded live at Elastic Arts, Chicago by Dave Zuchowski, July 21, 2016Mastered by Branic Howard, Open Field, Portland, ORArtwork and layout by E. Lindorff-ElleryLetterpress printed by Small Fires Press, New Orleans